Thematic Sessions

The 2004 Program Committee took a new approach to the development of Thematic Sessions. Rather than limit exploration of the meeting theme to the usual 16 invited panels (one per time slot), the umbrella was expanded to encompass the allocation for the standard invited Special Session component. As a result of this bold reorganization, all the invited panel sessions in each timeslot will be related in some manner to investigating the meeting theme. This plethora of theme-related sessions is listed below in four categories which embrace important aspects of “Public Sociologies.”

Making a Difference

One aim of public sociology is to stimulate wide discussion about social policy and its effects. Here sociology enters public debate with its evaluation of policies, such as those designed to reduce economic inequality, environmental pollution, racial and gender discrimination, disease, crime, drug abuse, and so on. Public sociology makes a difference, however, not only by evaluating policy but also by proposing alternative policies in such areas as family, immigration, and education. Finally, public sociology expands the social imagination with more radical alternatives such as basic incomes grants, and experiments in participatory democracy.

25 Years After Love Canal: The Environmental Health and Justice Movements

America’s Incarceration Experiment: Its Costs and Consequences

Culture, Politics and the Production of Disease: African Cases and Controversies

Human Rights as Public Sociology (co-sponsored with International Human Rights Funders Group)

Is Parental Leave Good or Bad for Gender Equality?

Public Sociology in Practice: Internationalizing American Sociology through Community Action Research

Sociologizing School Policy: The Public Sociology of Education

Stratification Theory and Its Contribution to a Public Understanding of Inequality

The End of Welfare as We Knew It: What Now?

Transnational Environmental Struggles and Our Role as Political Actors

Uneven Development and Inequality: What Difference Have Public Policies Made?

Unfinished Business: Fifty Years after Brown v. Board of Education

Which Box Should Be Checked and Why Does It Matter?: The Consequences of Racial Classification in the United States and Brazil

Public versus Private

The current valorization of the private and privatization, and the vogue of efficiency and effectiveness, suck the very lifeblood out of public and policy sociology. What are the effects of stripping the state of its public face in such areas as welfare, insurance, health care, industry, and, last but not least, what are the effects of the corporatization of the university? Does privatization also diminish civil society and weaken public arenas for opinion formation, social movements, democratic participation? Defenseless against new forms of public control what happens to private individuals – their bodies and their souls, their identities and their families? What are the implications of the privatization of the public for racial classification, popular culture, and the prosecution of war?

American Communities and the Public Good

Black Popular Culture

Body Politics: Where the Public and the Private Meet

Collaborating on a Public Issue: The Case of Family Leave

Conscience: Sociological Reconstruction and Deconstruction

Institutional Identities and the Public Realm

Life Courses in the Globalization Process: Six Years of International Comparative Research

The Corpse in Contemporary Culture: Identifying, Recoding, and Transacting the Dead Body in the 21st Century

University, Inc.: The Corporatization of Academic Life

What’s the Problem? Is Privatization the Answer?

Sociology and Its Publics

What are sociology’s publics? Are there indeed any publics left for sociology — apart from students our first and most important public? Is sociology too “left” to promote debate and discussion beyond the academy? Can we, do we, should we create our own publics when, for example, we conduct intensive research, for example, on social movements? Should we constitute ourselves as a public and with what consequences for the profession? What is the sociology of reaching publics? What role does the media play in linking sociology to its publics? What are the disciplinary antecedents and consequences of engaging publics? Is public sociology necessary for a vital discipline, or, alternatively, does it spell the demise of the discipline? What are the dilemmas for public sociology in such controversial areas as reproductive rights, ethics of science, family policy, sexuality, and affirmative action? What do our founding fathers have to say about the public role of sociology – do they have any relevance for today?

Activist-Intellectuals in the Media Spotlight: Is the Whole World Watching?

Are We on the Same Page?: Bridging Media Research, Activism, and Practice

Being a Public Intellectual: Bringing Research to the People

Community Organizing in the Era of Globalization: Why? How? For Whom?

GLBT Sociologies and Public Issues

How Journalists Bring Social Science to the Public

Producing Public Ethnographies: On The Politics and Ethics of Field Inquiry

“To Take or Not to Take a Stand”: Can Sociology Thrive without Addressing Public Controversies?

Crossing Borders

As the traffic of people and things across national borders, some legal some illegal, becomes ever heavier, public sociology can no longer confine itself to national publics. Various panels investigate the effects of crossing borders on global publics, specifically the constitution of transnational identities (religious, citizenship, gender), transnational organizations (NGOs, multi-lateral agencies, corporations), transnational communities or diasporas, transnational social movements (labor, feminism). What are the consequences of violent incursions across borders (terrorism, colonialism, genocide)?

America in a New Age of Global Conflict

Border Crossing and Human Rights (in North America)

Can Transnational Labor Mobilization Change Globalization?

Diasporas and Identities: The Global Jew in a Postmodern Age

Globalization and Resistance: Past and Present

Globalization of Love

Public Religiosity and Transnational Space: A Question of Relevance

Reconfiguring Citizenship in Europe, and Beyond

The Clash of Civilizations: How Deep? How Enduring? How Real?

The Role of NGOs in Social Movements: U.S. and European Contrasts

The Shifting Transnational Boundaries of Carework: Caring Labor in International Conflict

Transnational Women’s Movement

What Do Sociologists Have to Say about Terrorism?

What Do We Know about Migrant Smuggling and Human Trafficking?

Who Defines the Reality of Feminized Migration in Asia?

Ford Initiative in Public Sociology

The term public sociology was invented in the United States to criticize and counter mounting professionalization. In many countries of today the term public sociology is not necessary because sociology is presumed to be public. Where sociology is so public, however, it is also often vulnerable to political pressures and even banning. In virtually all countries the boundaries between public and professional sociologies are more fluid and permeable than in the United States. These seven panels bring representatives from different regions of the world to discuss the distinctive configuration of national public sociologies and the issues they take up.

Production of Sociological Knowledge, Public Engagement and the Quest for Peace and Justice in Palestine/Israel

Public Intellectuals and Critical Events: The Case of India

Public Sociology in East Asia

Public Sociology in Post-Communist Societies

Public Sociology in South Africa

Public Sociology in the United States

Public Space and Sociology in Latin America Today

Activities of Other Groups

The wide-ranging interests of ASA members generate meetings of special interest groups during each year’s Annual Meeting. Space is assigned as available to these groups to hold their meetings and/or sessions in evening time slots when no program sessions or other ASA activities are scheduled. Please refer to the online Searchable Program for details on activities of other groups. Some groups will also have membership information and publications on display in the ASA registration area at the Hilton San Francisco.